Year 4

Year 4 - May Newsletter

Term 2 2025

Literacy 

In Knowledge we are wrapping up our Health Unit by looking at ‘Blue Zones’ and studying the lifestyles of people who live there. We have learned that people living in the 5 blue zones live longer, healthier lives and have less health problems in old age. We also explored advancements in science and how inventions like the heart and lung machine help during transplants and major operations. We are looking forward to beginning our new History unit ‘Dynasties of China’ in Week 7. 

In Writing, students have been busy putting their knowledge of the respiratory system and circulatory system into action. Combining this knowledge with their understanding of complex sentences and transitional words, we have been creating explanation texts that follow the correct structure, have cohesive paragraphs and include plenty of topic specific vocabulary. Students co created a class text and are now having a go at constructing their own explanation texts on subjects such as ‘How does our respiratory system protect itself?’ or ‘What is circulation?’ Students have created a well thought out ‘think and plan’ using note taking and will be drafting their explanation texts throughout the week.

Numeracy

Students have been learning all about operations in regard to Subtraction and Addition! We have been using the vertical algorithm to solve unknown sums, both with and without renaming, and have started to work with worded problems to identify and use the skills we have learnt so far to figure them out. The Grade 4’s have worked very hard to extend their knowledge and understanding and are becoming increasingly more confident to independently solve these equations. 

Students have recently completed their learning in measurement, focusing on comparing and calculating length, mass, capacity, and temperature. It has been fantastic to see them confidently transfer their skills across these topics, particularly in using scaled instruments and calculating differences with accuracy. Next, students will explore the concepts of area and perimeter, along with a variety of strategies to solve related problems. In addition to this, they are wrapping up their statistics unit, where they’ve been busy creating, interpreting, and analysing a wide range of data sets. We’re also excited to begin our unit on probability, where students will learn to use vocabulary such as impossible, unlikely, equal, likely, and certain to describe and order the likelihood of everyday events. Students will also design their own chance experiments and investigate the relationships within their findings.

Social & Emotional Learning

In Social and Emotional Learning, students have been continuing to explore their Resilience Project books. We have looked at how we can find joy outside of an online space by writing down little ‘glimmers’. Have a look below!

We have also started ‘Mini Sparks’ which are 10 minutes before our SEL lessons where we spend time creating, and deepening, the relationships we have in our classrooms. We use GEM (gratitude, empathy, mindfulness) chats, such as the one below, to have these conversations. 

Auslan

In Auslan, students have been learning about the different hand shapes used for signs. Students investigated what signs they know that use the bent hand, bent two plane/maybe and soon handshapes. Students have also been learning about vegetables and played a matching game to the words and signs.